Learn how to create a training plan and schedule key workouts to reach your goals!

To excel in your athletic goals, you need to train with a purpose. Training with a purpose means knowing why you are doing a particular workout and how that workout fits into your overall progression toward your goals. But to train with a purpose, you need a plan.
This guide shows endurance athletes how to train with a purpose, teaching you what types of workouts to target — and when — to set yourself up for success. Whether you are a runner, triathlete, cross country skier, cyclist, mountain endurance athlete, or coach, learn how to set up a long-range plan and implement it with weekly workouts that target the desired training effects.
If you are currently using — or considering using — an Alp Fitness training plan and are curious about the philosophy behind the plan or would like to customize the plan, this guide provides you with additional details so you can expertly adapt and tailor your plan.
If you are an endurance athlete interested in designing your own custom training plan, this guide provides you with the templates and tools you need to coach yourself. If you’d like to use the Alp Fitness workout library to create your own training plan on TrainingPeaks, check out the “Running – Workout Library.”
By the end, you will be able to:
- Define your goals and prioritize your target events
- Explain the concept of periodization and apply it to your training plan
- Identify key training phases that help you develop as an endurance athlete
- Select the appropriate progression across training phases for your goals
- Create your own customized training plan using the Alp Fitness training plan template
- Schedule your weekly training using workouts to target desired training effects
Begin with the End in Mind
Your goals ultimately drive the training program you will create for yourself. So what are your goals? What do you want to achieve this year, next year, and beyond?
You’re here right now because there’s a race or adventure on the horizon that you’ve decided to target. And to set yourself up for success, you know you need to put in some training between now and then. You need a training plan to help you prepare.
The first step to creating your training plan is to define those goals on the horizon. Your goals might include a race, an organized event, a personal adventure, or even a non-competitive performance objective.
Take a moment to look ahead and prioritize the pursuits you want to target. These are the races, events, or adventures that you will build your training program around. What is your top priority? What are other important, but not necessarily top priorities?
Create a list of your priorities and label them A-priority, B-priority, and C-priority using these guidelines:
A-priority: These are the most important races of your season (usually 1-3 events). You will design your training program around the top-priority event(s) to help you arrive in peak form. If you have more than one A-priority event, these will ideally either occur together within a time period of two to three weeks or be separated by a few months or more.
B-priority: These are races of lesser importance. You still want to do well at them and you will work a few extra days of rest into your training plan so you can be competitive, but you won’t go into them in peak form as you would with your A-priority events.
C-priority: These are events that you will “train through,” working them into your regular training schedule. They will be done as field tests or hard workouts, maybe to gain experience, to have fun, or to enjoy the camaraderie of an organized group event. Deciding whether or not to do one of these races may be left up to the week (or day) of the event, taking into account a variety of factors relevant to your training at that point.
Once you’ve completed this prioritization exercise, you will have a high-level view of where you want to go. With those end destinations in mind, the next step is to work backwards to create your training plan.
For more guidance on the goal setting process, see the “Guide to Goal Setting & Mental Skills Training.”
Periodized Training
Preparing for your target event requires a balancing act between sufficient overload and adequate recovery, all while moving you toward the type of event-specific fitness needed to peak you for your event. So how does one put this all together?
One answer has been around since the middle of the twentieth century in an approach to training known as periodization. First used by the Soviets and refined by Romanian scientist Tudor Bompa, periodization involves breaking the year up into distinct training phases that build on one another to peak an athlete for the most important competitions at the end of the season.
Periodization is therefore different from doing the same type of training week-in and week-out. It is also different than randomly switching routines every month or so just for the sake of variation. Periodization systematically progresses you through successive stages over the course of the training year. Long-term progression is the goal so that you arrive at the major competitions of the year in peak form.
Periodized programs follow the principle of specificity, which states that training adaptations are specific to the system worked. This means the closer you are to your target event, the more specific your training needs to be for that particular event. You therefore want to progress from working the least specific physiology to most specific physiology for your racing activity and distance. The closer to the key race, the more specific the training should be to target the demands of the race. The farther from the key race, the more focus you can place on working other systems that support your overall fitness and long-term development.
Periodized programs also need to alternate between the application of training stress and recovery. When you train, you introduce a stimulus, or stress to your body — what Hans Selye, a Hungarian biologist who worked around the middle of the twentieth century, called eustress (“good stress”). This is followed by a response from the body which leads to a positive physiological adaptation. Selye called this stress-response-adaptation process the general adaptation syndrome (GAS). But too much stress without appropriate recovery leads to exhaustion — what athletes call overtraining — with long term decreases in performance. So the application of training stress must be balanced with appropriate recovery.
At the same time, once you’ve gained a particular adaptation, the overload principle states that any new training gain requires an appropriate training stimulus that is greater than the amount of training stress to which the body is currently adapted. So you need to apply a training stimulus appropriate to your current fitness level (punctuated by appropriate recovery) to continue to ratchet up your fitness incrementally. A runner training for a marathon wouldn’t start at the beginning of their training plan with a 26.2-mile all-out time trial; there would obviously be a progression that incrementally builds the volume and intensity so their body can handle the rigors of that distance come race day — a periodized training plan.
So, periodization comes into play in two ways when designing a training plan:
- Your training plan will move you through a series of phases where each phase focuses on developing a particular aspect of your physiology, moving from least specific to most specific.
- Your training plan alternates the application of training stress and recovery along the way to gradually increase your fitness.
A periodized training plan starts with your training year or season (“macrocycle”). Your training year or season may be more or less than a standard calendar year; it just represents a large chunk of time that revolves around your major goals — one or a handful of target races or events, either stacked together at the end of the season or spread apart by several months.
Your training year moves through a progression of training phases, or blocks (“mesocycles”) where each phase focuses on developing one or more physiological adaptations. These training phases consist of about three to twelve training weeks (“microcycles”). Training weeks typically revolve around a standard calendar week (e.g., Monday through Sunday). Although it is possible to use training “weeks” of, say, 10 days instead of the seven-day week, most athletes find it easier to schedule around the standard calendar week.
There are different ways to structure a periodization program within a training phase. One way is to gradually increase training volume or intensity over a period of 2-3 weeks followed by a recovery week, repeating either a 3-up/1-down schedule (three weeks of higher intensity or volume followed by a recovery week) or 2-up/1-down schedule (two weeks of higher intensity or volume followed by a recovery week). If your training phase is 8 weeks long; then you would move through two 3-up/1-down cycles. The recovery weeks build extra time into the schedule to allow you to absorb the previous weeks’ training. Note that a “recovery week” is not a week off from training, but merely a week (or partial week) with reduced volume and intensity to give your body a chance to rebuild stronger than before.
Another approach is to place the hardest workouts at the beginning of the training block and decrease the volume or intensity as the training block progresses toward a recovery week. This allows you to do the harder workouts when you are the freshest, gradually backing off as you accumulate more fatigue in subsequent weeks. After your scheduled recovery week, you then repeat that pattern.
Do you need to schedule an entire recovery week every three or four weeks? Maybe not. Advanced athletes and younger athletes may be able to schedule a few extra recovery days (rather than a full week). Assess your own background and consider how you respond to the training to determine how to schedule your recovery cycles. The key to implementing any training program is monitoring your state of fatigue on an ongoing basis to determine when to back off so you don’t dig yourself into an overtraining hole — this is especially important for advanced endurance athletes who often push the envelope on their training volume and intensity.
Training programs vary in how they put together these pieces to create a periodization plan. To customize a plan for your needs, you will take in account how far away your target event is, its distance, your prior background as an endurance athlete, and your current state of fitness.
Before detailing the main training phases that form the building blocks of your training plan, the next section outlines the Alp Fitness training zones used in workouts during those training phases. For more on how to set your training zones, see the “Guide to Using Training Zones.”
Training Zones
Training zones allow you to measure and monitor your workout intensity to target particular training effects.
The Alp Fitness training zones use descriptive names related to perceived exertion: “Easy,” “Conversational,” “Comfortably Hard,” and “Uncomfortably Hard.” Each of these perceived exertion levels is associated with breathing and talking cues to help you gauge your effort.
Each zone is also correlated with heart rate, power, and pace. So you can use heart rate, power, and/or pace — along with perceived exertion — to measure and monitor your training. The ranges of heart rate, power, and pace for each training zone are based on percentages of threshold heart rate (LTHR), functional threshold power (FTPw), and functional threshold pace (FTPa), respectively.
When using the zones, there will be day to day variability in where your perceived exertion, heart rate, power, and pace fall in relation to each other. This is one reason why it can be helpful to use multiple tools to gauge training intensity. If, for example, you use perceived exertion, heart rate, and power; then aim to get two out of the three measurements into the prescribed zone for the workout. Even if you’re not using both heart rate and power, aim to use one or the other in addition to perceived exertion.
Remember, even if you only use perceived exertion to monitor your intensity during a workout, recording heart rate or power data are still important so TrainingPeaks can calculate your Training Stress Score for the workout (this helps you or your coach monitor your overall training).
Alp Fitness Training Zones
“Easy” Zone
Easy nose-breathing effort. You should be able to comfortably breathe through your nose and tell a long story to someone next to you without needing to slow down to catch your breath. Breathing is barely above walking breathing rate.
- Intensity: Easy
- Heart Rate: Less than 85% of lactate threshold heart rate (LTHR)
- Power: Less than 56% of functional threshold power (FTPw)
- Pace: Slower than 129% of functional threshold pace (FTPa)
- Purpose: Used to aid recovery from hard days and add to your aerobic base.
- Also known as: Friel’s Zone 1 or Coggan’s Zone 1
“Conversational” Zone
Conversational nose-breathing effort. You should be able to breathe through your nose and hold a back-and-forth conversation with someone running next to you (taking turns to speak). Breathing is moderate and not labored. Once you’ve moved beyond this effort level, you’ve moved beyond your aerobic threshold (AeT).
- Intensity: At or below your aerobic threshold (AeT)
- Heart Rate: 85-89% of lactate threshold heart rate (LTHR)
- Power: 56-75% of functional threshold power (FTPw)
- Pace: 114-129% of functional threshold pace (FTPa)
- Purpose: Used more than any other training zone to build the aerobic endurance base, which allows you to better metabolize fat and spare glycogen (stored carbohydrate) as a long duration energy source.
- Also known as: Friel’s Zone 2 or Coggan’s Zone 2
“Comfortably Hard” (Tempo) Zone
Comfortably hard effort above your aerobic threshold (AeT) but below your lactate threshold (LT). You should still be able to breathe through your nose (although deep and labored) while your ability to talk will be limited to 2-3 sentences at a time.
- Intensity: Above your aerobic threshold (AeT) for sustained durations
- Heart Rate: 90-94% of lactate threshold heart rate (LTHR)
- Power: 76-90% of functional threshold power (FTPw)
- Pace: 106-113% of functional threshold pace (FTPa)
- Purpose: Used sparingly as a bridge to threshold work, to build intensive aerobic endurance and improve lactate tolerance; and to simulate marathon-distance race pace.
- Also known as: Friel’s Zone 3 or Coggan’s Zone 3
“Comfortably Hard” (Threshold) Zone
Comfortably hard effort nearing or even crossing just over your lactate threshold (LT). As you approach and cross over your lactate threshold (LT) you may be able to say 5-7 words at a time, but will need to breathe through your mouth.
- Intensity: Nearing or just crossing over your lactate threshold (LT)
- Heart Rate: 95-102% of lactate threshold heart rate (LTHR)
- Power: 91-105% of functional threshold power (FTPw)
- Pace: 97-105% of functional threshold pace (FTPa)
- Purpose: Used to raise the lactate threshold by improving lactate tolerance and decreasing lactate accumulation, which allows you to stay aerobic at faster speeds.
- Also known as: Friel’s Zones 4-5a or Coggan’s Zone 4
“Uncomfortably Hard” (VO2max) Zone
Uncomfortably hard mouth-breathing effort. You may be able to say a single, short word, but only if you have to. Breathing rate is rapid with short, forceful breaths.
- Intensity: At your VO2max
- Heart Rate: 103-106% of lactate threshold heart rate (LTHR)
- Power: 106-120% of functional threshold power (FTPw)
- Pace: 90-96% of functional threshold pace (FTPa)
- Purpose: Used to increase the maximal rate of oxygen transport (aerobic capacity or VO2max), build lactate tolerance, and increase anaerobic endurance.
- Also known as: Friel’s Zone 5b or Coggan’s Zone 5
“Uncomfortably Hard” (Anaerobic Capacity) Zone
Uncomfortably hard mouth-breathing effort. You may be able to say a single, short word, but only if you have to. Breathing rate is rapid with short, forceful breaths.
- Intensity: Above your VO2max for short “speed” intervals less than 1-2 minutes
- Heart Rate: Greater than 106% of lactate threshold heart rate (LTHR)
- Power: Greater than 120% of functional threshold power (FTPw)
- Pace: Faster than 89% of functional threshold pace (FTPa)
- Purpose: Used to work on top-end speed and develop anaerobic capacity for short sprints less than 1-2 minutes in duration.
- Also known as: Friel’s Zone 5c or Coggan’s Zone 6
How the Alp Fitness Zones Compare to Other Systems
For those interested in how these zones relate to other training zone systems and where the percentages come from, here’s more background.
The percentages of heart rate and pace come from Joe Friel’s seven-zone system, adapted to the Alp Fitness training zones; and the percentages of power come from Andrew Coggan’s six-zone system, adapted to the Alp Fitness training zones.
The Alp Fitness zones are effectively Coggan’s first six zones with descriptive names added. In both Coggan’s zones and the Alp Fitness zones, Friel’s “Zone 4” and “Zone 5a” are merged into a single zone. Coggan calls this “Zone 4,” or the “threshold” zone. This is the same as the Alp Fitness “comfortably hard (high) zone.”
Training Phases
Training phases are the building blocks of your training plan. As you lay out a periodized training plan, you will organize the plan across several phases. Each phase has a different training focus.
The training phases are not distributed equally across the training plan; each phase, with its own focus, will be spread across a different number of weeks:
- Training phases that focus on lower intensity work will be longer.
- Training phases that focus on higher intensity work will be shorter.
Following the principle of specificity, you will set up your training plan to move from the least specific physiology to most specific physiology for your racing activity and distance. So the way you organize the training phases will depend on your goals, as well as your background and prior training up to the start of your training plan.
Before discussing different ways to put these training phases together, the next sections discuss each of the training phases below in more detail:
- Aerobic Base Conditioning. This is the starting point for those new to endurance training (with less than four years of training), as well as experienced endurance athletes who may be coming off an extended break from training (such as a long break due to injury or several weeks of inactivity between seasons). Aerobic base conditioning prepares your body for more rigorous training.
- Endurance Training. This is quintessential “base training” where you focus on building mileage — or volume. Endurance training targets both extensive endurance and intensive endurance as you increase the duration of your long runs or workout sessions.
- Lactate Threshold Training. Lactate threshold training focuses on higher-end aerobic work approaching — and sometimes just crossing over — your lactate threshold (LT). As an endurance athlete, you want to be able to stay aerobic at higher levels of effort. Lactate threshold training helps to improve your lactate tolerance and decrease lactate accumulation, which allows you to stay aerobic at faster speeds.
- VO2max Training. VO2max training involves higher-intensity anaerobic work. Now you are working beyond your lactate threshold to increase the maximal rate of oxygen transport (aerobic capacity or VO2max), build lactate tolerance, and increase anaerobic endurance.
- Peak & Taper. Once the bulk of the training has been done, it’s time to taper and sharpen for your key event.
- Transition. The transition phase is just what it sounds like. It’s a transition period between seasons. After that A-priority event at the end of your season, you’ll want to take some days off, followed by some easy recovery weeks of light activity. Then ease back into some unstructured training, maybe trying out different endurance activities from the ones you typically train and race. The point is to refresh your mind and body while maintaining your aerobic base conditioning. After all, aren’t you doing this because you enjoy living a healthy, active lifestyle?
Each training phase focuses on one or more key workout types. Key workouts for each training phase are illustrated in the sections that follow. But you can also find a summary of all workout types in the Alp Fitness workout library.
Note that in addition to the key workout or workouts associated with each training phase, recovery and endurance workouts are also used throughout all training phases.
Aerobic Base Conditioning
Any endurance athlete’s progression starts with a basic level of aerobic base conditioning — the ABCs of endurance training. This is the starting point for those new to endurance training (with less than four years of training), as well as experienced endurance athletes who may be coming off an extended break from training (such as a long break due to injury or several weeks of inactivity between seasons). Aerobic base conditioning prepares your body for more rigorous training by building endurance and fostering neuromuscular speed.
During aerobic base conditioning, workouts primarily focus on endurance sessions in the “conversational” zone to develop your aerobic system. These “conversational” zone workouts involve a continuous effort with durations of 20 minutes up to an hour or more. The training effect, or purpose of these workouts is to help your body better metabolize fat and spare glycogen (stored carbohydrate) as a long duration energy source.
During a “conversational” effort, you should be able to breathe through your nose and hold a back-and-forth conversation with someone running next to you (taking turns to speak). Breathing is moderate and not labored.
These endurance workouts actually comprise the bulk of your training hours during any training phase, but the aerobic base conditioning training block focuses almost entirely on this extensive endurance training as a starting point for more advanced training.
During aerobic base conditioning, you will include a handful of “alactics,” or short bursts of speed less than 10 seconds in duration, during at least one or two endurance workouts each week. These alactics stimulate the firing of fast-twitch muscle fibers without tapping into the anaerobic glycolysis (lactic acid) system; this is why they are termed alactics, a- meaning “without” and –lactic referring to the lactic acid system.
These short sprints — also known as, “striders,” “pickups,” “acceleration striders,” or “diagonals” (when run diagonally on the infield of a track) — are punctuated by ample recovery in between. They are especially important in helping runners develop the body’s supporting structures (e.g., muscles, ligaments, tendons) that need to be in place for higher intensity aerobic and anaerobic work. You can think of alactics as “pure speed,” as opposed to the notion of speed as it is sometimes used to refer to activities of a few minutes in duration (such as the 800-meter track event) that do tap into the lactic acid system.
Form drills specific to the endurance activity should also be worked into aerobic base conditioning workouts to further foster proper neuromuscular patterning for economy of movement.
Aerobic base conditioning for new endurance athletes and experienced athletes coming off an extended break might span 3-12+ weeks in your training plan, depending on your particular situation. Endurance athletes with more than four years of training behind them may spend 1-2 weeks in this phase or skip it altogether if they have sufficient conditioning to start directly into a different training phase.
Aerobic Base Conditioning: Key Workouts
The key workouts for aerobic base conditioning, as illustrated below, include endurance workouts and recovery workouts — with or without alactics and drills.
Endurance Workouts
Endurance workouts contribute to your aerobic base. During the endurance training phase, you will be increasing the duration of one or more endurance workouts each week — the weekly “long run” for runners. Ultrarunners might use back-to-back long runs — that is, long runs scheduled two days in a row — to achieve greater volume in preparation for longer events. When stacking back-to-back long runs, do the harder/longer run on the first day. The endurance workout in other training phases will remain relatively constant in duration with the exact length depending on your event and goals. The bulk of your training time during any training phase will consist of recovery and endurance workouts.
Conversational Zone:
- Intensity: At or below your aerobic threshold (AeT)
- Heart Rate: 85-89% of lactate threshold heart rate (LTHR)
- Power: 56-75% of functional threshold power (FTPw)
- Pace: 114-129% of functional threshold pace (FTPa)
Total Time at Intensity: 30 minutes to 6+ hours
Interval Time: n/a
Work to Rest Ratio: n/a
How Often: 2-6 workouts per week during all training phases
Purpose: Used more than any other training zone to build the aerobic endurance base, which allows you to better metabolize fat and spare glycogen (stored carbohydrate) as a long duration energy source.
Sample Workout: 90-minute endurance run
Recovery Workouts
Recovery workouts are central to balancing the application of training stress and recovery; and these are your default workouts. If you find yourself too fatigued to execute a key intensity workout that’s scheduled; then default to a recovery workout. After a recovery workout, you should feel refreshed. You can always shorten a recovery workout or nix it altogether if you simply need to rest that day.
Easy Zone:
- Intensity: Easy
- Heart Rate: Less than 85% of lactate threshold heart rate (LTHR)
- Power: Less than 56% of functional threshold power (FTPw)
- Pace: Slower than 129% of functional threshold pace (FTPa)
Total Time at Intensity: 20-60 minutes
Interval Time: n/a
Work to Rest Ratio: n/a
How Often: 2-3 workouts per week during all training phases
Purpose: Used to aid recovery from hard days and add to your aerobic base.
Sample Workout: 20-minute recovery run
Endurance Training
Endurance training is quintessential “base training” where you focus on building mileage — or workout duration. Endurance events by definition require the ability to move for long periods of time, necessitating a well-developed aerobic system to supply energy for the duration of your activity.
Endurance training targets both extensive endurance and intensive endurance as you increase the duration of your long runs or workout sessions.
The key workout during this phase is the standard base-training endurance workout in the “conversational” zone — that is, at or below your aerobic threshold (AeT) — to develop your aerobic system. These “conversational” zone endurance workouts involve a continuous effort with durations of 20 minutes up to several hours. The training effect targeted is your body’s ability to better metabolize fat and spare glycogen (stored carbohydrate) as a long duration energy source.
During a “conversational” effort, you should be able to breathe through your nose and hold a back-and-forth conversation with someone running next to you (taking turns to speak). Breathing is moderate and not labored. Once you’ve moved beyond this effort level, you’ve moved beyond your aerobic threshold (AeT).
During endurance training blocks, you will gradually increase the duration of one or more weekly endurance workouts. The duration you work up to will depend on the duration of the event you’re training for. Whereas a 90-minute long run may be sufficient for runners racing half marathons or shorter, marathoners may target long runs of 2-3 hours, and ultrarunners may do long runs that last 6+ hours.
Another key workout during this training phase is the “comfortably hard” tempo workout — also known as, “steady state” or “marathon simulation.” These workouts, which are used to build intensive aerobic endurance and improve lactate tolerance (and to simulate marathon-distance race pace), involve sustained tempo intervals of 20-60 minutes with a 5:1 up to 8:1 work to recovery ratio. Total time at intensity during these workouts can range from 30 minutes to 2 hours. For example, after you’re warmed up, you might do 30 minutes at a “comfortably hard” effort followed by some additional time at a “conversational” effort before warming down, or your workout might involve 2 x 20-minute “comfortably hard” intervals with a 4-minute recovery interval between them.
During a “comfortably hard” effort for these tempo workouts, you should still be able to breathe through your nose, but your ability to talk will be limited to 2-3 sentences at a time. Breathing is deep and labored.
Endurance training might span 8-12+ weeks in your training plan.
Endurance Training: Key Workouts
The key workouts during endurance training, as illustrated below, include endurance workouts and tempo workouts. Recovery workouts are used on days between the key workouts.
Endurance Workouts
Endurance workouts contribute to your aerobic base. During the endurance training phase, you will be increasing the duration of one or more endurance workouts each week — the weekly “long run” for runners. Ultrarunners might use back-to-back long runs — that is, long runs scheduled two days in a row — to achieve greater volume in preparation for longer events. When stacking back-to-back long runs, do the harder/longer run on the first day. The endurance workout in other training phases will remain relatively constant in duration with the exact length depending on your event and goals. The bulk of your training time during any training phase will consist of recovery and endurance workouts.
Conversational Zone:
- Intensity: At or below your aerobic threshold (AeT)
- Heart Rate: 85-89% of lactate threshold heart rate (LTHR)
- Power: 56-75% of functional threshold power (FTPw)
- Pace: 114-129% of functional threshold pace (FTPa)
Total Time at Intensity: 30 minutes to 6+ hours
Interval Time: n/a
Work to Rest Ratio: n/a
How Often: 2-6 workouts per week during all training phases
Purpose: Used more than any other training zone to build the aerobic endurance base, which allows you to better metabolize fat and spare glycogen (stored carbohydrate) as a long duration energy source.
Sample Workout: 90-minute endurance run
Tempo Workouts
Tempo workouts are used sparingly as a bridge to higher intensity threshold work or to simulate marathon-distance race pace. These are steady-state aerobic tempo sessions below your lactate threshold, but above your aerobic threshold (more on these terms). So they are “comfortably hard” to sustain over the duration of the interval, which can range from 20-60 minutes. You can integrate these into an endurance workout or do a tempo workout on its own after an easy warmup and before a warmdown. The progression for these workouts is to increase your time at intensity and then decrease the recovery time between the intensity bouts. You’ll typically want to schedule at least one recovery day between these workouts.
Comfortably Hard (Tempo) Zone:
- Intensity: Above your aerobic threshold (AeT) for sustained durations
- Heart Rate: 90-94% of lactate threshold heart rate (LTHR)
- Power: 76-90% of functional threshold power (FTPw)
- Pace: 106-113% of functional threshold pace (FTPa)
Total Time at Intensity: 30 minutes to 2 hours
Interval Time: 20-60 minutes
Work to Rest Ratio: 5:1 to 8:1
How Often: 2-4 workouts per week during endurance training phase
Purpose: Used sparingly as a bridge to threshold work, to build intensive aerobic endurance and improve lactate tolerance; and to simulate marathon-distance race pace.
Sample Workout: 90-minute endurance run with 30-minute tempo in the middle
Lactate Threshold Training
Lactate threshold training focuses on higher-end aerobic work approaching — and sometimes just crossing over — your lactate threshold (LT). As an endurance athlete, you want to be able to stay aerobic at higher levels of effort. Lactate threshold training helps to improve your lactate tolerance and decrease lactate accumulation, which allows you to stay aerobic at faster speeds.
During this training phase, your key higher-intensity sessions consist of LT cruise intervals of 6-20 minutes in duration with a 2:1 up to 5:1 work to recovery ratio. For example, after you’re warmed up, you might do 4 x 8 minutes in the “comfortably hard” zone with 4 minutes of easy recovery between. Total time at intensity during these workouts can range from 30-60 minutes.
You’ll notice that these workouts are done at a “comfortably hard” effort similar to the aerobic tempo workouts used during the endurance training phase. The differences are that interval length is shorter and the intensity moves closer to — or even crosses over — your lactate threshold.
For the “comfortably hard” lactate threshold workouts, you may be able to say 5-7 words at a time, but will likely need to breathe through your mouth.
Aside from these key intensity workouts, the bulk of your training during this and any phase includes endurance workouts in the “conversational” zone and recovery workouts in the “easy” zone.
Lactate threshold training might span 6-8+ weeks in your training plan.
Lactate Threshold Training: Key Workouts
The key workouts during lactate threshold training, as illustrated below, are threshold workouts. Endurance workouts and recovery workouts are also used.
Threshold Workouts
Threshold workouts raise the lactate threshold by improving lactate tolerance and decreasing lactate accumulation, which allows you to stay aerobic at faster speeds. These are key workouts during the lactate threshold training phase. Lactate threshold (LT) cruise intervals are shorter in duration than the tempo workout intervals and are done at a higher intensity that approaches (and may cross over) your lactate threshold. The progression for cruise intervals is to increase the length of the interval and then to decrease the recovery time between the intervals. You’ll typically want to schedule at least one recovery day between these workouts.
Comfortably Hard (Threshold) Zone:
- Intensity: Nearing or just crossing over your lactate threshold (LT)
- Heart Rate: 95-102% of lactate threshold heart rate (LTHR)
- Power: 91-105% of functional threshold power (FTPw)
- Pace: 97-105% of functional threshold pace (FTPa)
Total Time at Intensity: 30-60 minutes
Interval Time: 6-20 minutes
Work to Rest Ratio: 2:1 to 5:1
How Often: 2-3 workouts per week during lactate threshold training phase
Purpose: Used to raise the lactate threshold by improving lactate tolerance and decreasing lactate accumulation, which allows you to stay aerobic at faster speeds.
Sample Workout: 60-minute run with 4 x 8-on/2-off cruise intervals
VO2max Training
VO2max training involves higher-intensity anaerobic work. Now you are working beyond your lactate threshold to increase the maximal rate of oxygen transport (aerobic capacity or VO2max), build lactate tolerance, and increase anaerobic endurance. These workouts are at the opposite end of the continuum from the endurance workouts.
During this training phase, your key higher-intensity sessions consist of work intervals of 1-6 minutes in duration with a recovery interval equal to or slightly less than the work interval. For example, after you’re warmed up, you might do 4 x 3 minutes in the “uncomfortably hard” zone with 2 minutes easy recovery between. Total time at intensity for these workouts can range from 12-24 minutes.
For the “uncomfortably hard” VO2max intervals, you will need to breathe through your mouth. You may be able to say a single, short word, but only if you have to. Breathing rate is rapid with short, forceful breaths.
Aside from these key intensity workouts, the bulk of your training during this and any phase includes endurance workouts in the “conversational” zone and recovery workouts in the “easy” zone.
VO2max training might span 3-6 weeks in your training plan.
VO2max Training: Key Workouts
The key workouts during VO2max training, as illustrated below, are VO2max workouts. Endurance workouts and recovery workouts are also used.
VO2max Workouts
VO2max workouts are higher intensity anaerobic workouts used to increase the maximal rate of oxygen transport (aerobic capacity or VO2max), build lactate tolerance, and increase anaerobic endurance. These are key workouts during the VO2max training phase. VO2max intervals are short but intense. They are “uncomfortably hard” and require more recovery between the intervals and between the days when you do these workouts. You’ll typically want to schedule 1-2 days of recovery workouts between VO2max interval workouts (two days with three sleep cycles is ideal).
Uncomfortably Hard (VO2max) Zone:
- Intensity: At your VO2max
- Heart Rate: 103-106% of lactate threshold heart rate (LTHR)
- Power: 106-120% of functional threshold power (FTPw)
- Pace: 90-96% of functional threshold pace (FTPa)
Total Time at Intensity: 12-24 minutes
Interval Time: 1-6 minutes
Work to Rest Ratio: Equal to or slightly less than work interval
How Often: 2-3 workouts per week during VO2max training phase
Purpose: Used to increase the maximal rate of oxygen transport (aerobic capacity or VO2max), build lactate tolerance, and increase anaerobic endurance.
Sample Workout: 60-minute run with 3 x 3-on/2-off VO2max intervals
Peak & Taper
Peaking for your top priority event is as much an art as a science. Different athletes respond in different ways to the final taper; and this is where experience and knowing yourself will allow you to craft an effective training schedule over the final weeks before your target race. As you set up your final taper, keep the following principles in mind.
The peak phase covers the last few or more weeks before your target race. The general approach is to decrease volume while maintaining or increasing intensity. The aim here is to sharpen and hone your fitness.
Pitfalls to Avoid
There are two common errors athletes often make when peaking for an event.
- Some athletes mistake the notion of “tapering” for simply taking time off to rest. Although rest is vital during this (and any) phase, remember that the vacation doesn’t start until after your race. For these athletes, too much time off and too little intensity leaves them feeling stale as they toe the starting line.
- Other athletes get nervous about the reduction of volume during their taper and feel they need to do more to stay fit and be ready for race day. These are the ones that sneak in extra intervals or workouts. As a result, they do too much and reach the starting line feeling overly fatigued. Although maintaining some volume and intensity throughout peak training is important, remember that your fitness is already in the bank. This isn’t the time to continue making large deposits; it’s time to begin the withdrawals to buy the freshness and sharpness required for peak performance.
Avoiding these two extremes requires balancing your reduction of volume with your use of intensity.
Reducing Volume & Balancing Intensity
To avoid the problem of too many days off, keep the same frequency of workouts throughout the week; but reduce the duration of those workouts. This reduces the overall volume while allowing you to maintain your familiar routine.
When implementing intensity, reduce the number of intervals you do. Again, this reduces volume. You should leave the workout feeling less fatigued; and should feel yourself getting fresher and more eager to race as the days go on. This surplus of energy can be difficult to harness for some. The temptation is to do more intervals or go harder during a planned tempo or recovery workout. But this is where you need to reign yourself in and save it for the race. Trust your training and trust your plan. You will have time to fully test your mettle come race day.
As a general rule, the longer your event, the longer your taper. If you’re racing an ultramarathon, three weeks is a good length for a taper before your A-priority event. If you’re racing a half marathon, you may only need a week or two.
Training Phase Progressions
If the training phases are the building blocks of a training plan, how do you arrange those blocks to create a periodized progression?
As noted earlier, the principle of specificity says you should move from the least specific physiology to the most specific physiology for your racing activity and distance. But, if your weakness happens to be the physiology that is most specific to the race, you should begin working that area further from the race, too, so you have a longer lead time to develop the necessary adaptations.
Let’s just consider race distance here.
The longer your race, the more you’ll benefit from finishing your progression with several Endurance Training blocks. Since the upper-end VO2max Training at the other end of the continuum is least important for your race distance (although not unimportant for your development as an endurance athlete), you would place those training blocks earlier in your training year.
This approach works well for experienced endurance athletes who have a well-developed base from multiple years of endurance training, allowing you to raise your aerobic ceiling before building up the mileage/duration needed for your target event.
But if you’re new to endurance training (with less than four years of training) or are coming off an extended break in training, start with an Aerobic Base Conditioning block to prepare your body for the higher intensity VO2max Training. Then follow the VO2max Training with Lactate Threshold Training before moving into Endurance Training to build your mileage/duration in advance of your target event, ending with a final Peak & Taper prior to your event.
Progression for Longer Races
So for longer races (marathon to ultramarathon distances), your progression would look like this:
Aerobic Base Conditioning (as needed)
⇓
VO2max Training
⇓
Lactate Threshold Training
⇓
Endurance Training
⇓
Peak & Taper
⇓
Target Event
Progression for Shorter Races
The progression for shorter endurance events (below the marathon distance), would look like this:
Aerobic Base Conditioning (as needed)
⇓
Endurance Training
⇓
Lactate Threshold Training
⇓
VO2max Training
⇓
Peak & Taper
⇓
Target Event
The bulk of the plan, regardless of the order, is spent on Endurance Training. This remains true even if you’re training for a shorter distance event. This is because lower intensity training requires a longer adaptation process. On the other end of the continuum, the higher intensity VO2max training involves a shorter time frame to attain the adaptations.
Next, you’ll create your training plan, using these phases as the building blocks.
Create Your Training Plan
Now that you have some background on the concept of periodization, the different training phases, and the workout types used in those training phases, it’s time to create a custom training plan for your specific goals. Follow the steps below to create your own training plan.
You will use the Alp Fitness training plan template to develop your own custom plan. The template is a Google Sheet. Open the Google Sheet link for the template and make a copy to edit (you can either download it to your computer or save a copy in your own Google Drive).
To create a roadmap that guides you toward your destination, start with a high-level calendar view of the training year, as seen in the screenshot below.

Although this template lists a full calendar year — and outlining your training on an annual basis is useful for maximizing your long-term development — you can adapt the template to outline a training plan of any length.
If you only have 12 weeks between now and your target event, then your training plan will be 12 weeks long. If you have six months, then your training plan will be 6 months long, and so on.
Adjust the number of weeks and dates at the top to represent how you organize your training year or competitive seasons, which may differ from a regular calendar year — for example, your training plan might start in early December for an A-priority event in May.
Write the name of your target event(s) in the row for Event Name; and below each event, in the row for Event Priority, write A, B, or C according to how you’ve prioritized them. Adjust the weeks/dates as needed to create an outline with the number of weeks from the start of your training plan to your last A-priority event of the season.
For example, in this demo, my target event is the Mountain Ultra 50K on June 18. I mark that as an A-priority event.

I also have a B-priority event — the Trail Half Marathon on April 30 — and some C-priority events that I will use as workouts: the Winter Trail 10K on February 19 and the Spring Trail 10K on April 16. I start my training weeks on Mondays and end them on Sundays, so the races occur at the end of the weeks where I’ve placed them.

Now that you have your target event(s) on the calendar, work backwards to lay out the training phases. Notice that if you click the plus sign in the upper left of the Google Sheet, you can view columns A-F with the main training phases.

Below the training phases are checkboxes that indicate different elements to focus on. These include the key workouts for each phase, as well as other race-specific details to work on as you near your event — for example, this could include a focus on vertical feet (to match the profile of your race), dialing in your race nutrition strategy, acclimating to the heat (if you’ll be racing in hot weather), etc. Add additional rows here to capture what you may need to focus on for your particular event.
You can simply copy the name of the training phase, along with the checkboxes below it; then paste it into your training plan to map out your training blocks (or write in the names and check the boxes).

Start at the end with your final A-priority event and add in a Peak & Taper training block of 1-3 weeks. Remember, the longer the race, the longer the taper (up to three weeks). The shorter the race, the shorter the taper (maybe only a week).
For example, in this demo, I lay out a 3-week Peak & Taper prior to the A-race on June 17.

Decide how you will order the training phases and distribute them across the weeks of the plan, following the guidelines provided in the previous section.
- What will be your progression of training phases? For example, will you focus on Endurance Training or VO2max Training closer to your event?
- How much time will you spend on each training phase? Recall that training phases that focus on lower intensity work will be spread out over more weeks, while training phases that focus on higher intensity work will be fewer weeks.
- How will you structure recovery into your training blocks? For example, will you work in 3-week or 4-week cycles for recovery weeks?
For example, in this demo, I’m going to end my progression with Endurance Training since I’m targeting a trail 50K with a decent amount of elevation gain. My aim will be to focus on building my long runs and vertical feet during that final training phase. I’m heading into the training plan with a good base, so I will move right into VO2max Training > Lactate Threshold Training > Endurance Training > Peak & Taper.
This will be a 24-week training plan. So I will distribute each training phase as follows: VO2max Training (3 weeks) > Lactate Threshold Training (8 weeks) > Endurance Training (10 weeks) > Peak & Taper (3 weeks).

Next, assign a tentative training hours number or training stress score to each week in the plan. Setting these numbers in advance allows you to systematically plan out your training volume targets. This helps to avoid doing too much one week and not enough on other weeks. It doses out your training in a manner that allows you to consistently ratchet up your fitness.
- Training hours represent volume without taking into account intensity. So your training hours during higher-intensity blocks (VO2max Training) will be lower than hours during your lower-intensity blocks (Endurance Training). Training hours can be a helpful guide, especially as you seek to gradually increase your training volume and long endurance workout duration during the Endurance Training phase.
- Training Stress Score (TSS) takes into account both training volume and training intensity. It was developed by TrainingPeaks to help quantify training load. If you use TrainingPeaks; then you can see your weekly TSS total in the weekly summary, as highlighted in the image below.

Within each training block, focus on manipulating either volume or intensity, but not both at the same time. For higher intensity training blocks, such as VO2max Training, keep volume relatively constant while manipulating the intensity. For lower intensity training blocks, such as the Endurance Training, keep intensity relatively constant while manipulating the volume. This is where Training Stress Score (TSS) can become particularly helpful.
But whether you use training hours or TSS, setting these tentative numbers depends on your background and current fitness level. You must start from where you currently are and progress from there. Simply choosing training hours based on what someone else does or what you think you need to do for a given race distance overlooks your own unique situation.
Consider the average weekly training hours — or TSS — you put in over the previous season. That is your starting point. Then consider the average weekly training hours — or TSS — you will need to train to be successful in your target event. That is your destination. If the gap is too wide to accomplish in a single season; then you may need to approach your goal as a longer term project.
Although cramming for a long-distance endurance event (akin to staying up all night to cram for an exam in school) should be avoided, it’s also important to keep in mind that more training hours are not necessarily better. There is a sweet spot for you that you need to find, and you want to find it without pushing yourself over the edge into overtraining. That is where a smart training plan can help.
Ultrarunners use the minimum/maximum guideline as a reference point to understand how much training time is required to prepare for an event. Minimum refers to the minimum amount of hours you need to train during your highest — maximum — volume training phase, and when that should be in relation to your target event.
- If you’re training for an ultramarathon from 50K to 50 miles; then you want to target at least 6 hours per week over 3 weeks starting 6 weeks prior to your target event.
- If you’re training for an ultramarathon from 100K to 100 miles; then you want to target at least 9 hours per week for 6 weeks, starting 9 weeks before the goal race
This shouldn’t be taken as a one-size-fits-all prescription, but rather as a general guideline to help you realistically determine where you’re currently at with your training and where you need to be to set yourself up for success at your target event. It also underscores that training to complete an endurance event — even an ultramarathon — need not be a full-time job, which is good news since most of us have full-time jobs on top of the training we do. Unless you’re a pro, you will need to work your training around your work schedule and other life commitments. Be ambitious but realistic as you keep an eye on recovery to stay in that sweet spot — not too much, not too little.
In this demo, notice how I’ve arranged the training hours. I target fewer hours during the higher intensity phase VO2max block that starts the plan. This is important because I’ll be starting out with higher intensity intervals during that block and adding volume there would make it difficult to achieve that higher intensity work without putting myself in a hole.
I add a little bit of volume during the Lactate Threshold Training since the intensity of the intervals decreases. Then, I start to ramp up the training volume during the Endurance Training phase. Notice how the hours step down to recovery weeks throughout the training phases.
Also, the minimum/maximum guideline is met for the 50K distance of my target event — training at least 6 hours/week for 3 weeks starting 6 weeks out from the race.
The exact training hours each week will depend on how I’m recovering from the workouts, taking into account other life stressors that come along. But these estimates will provide guidance as I implement the plan on a weekly basis.
This sample plan is for one athlete. Your plan will look different because you will need to create it based on your own background and goals.

So that’s the sample training plan demo for a particular athlete targeting a particular goal. Use the same process to create your own training plan based on your starting point and desired destination.
Once you have a high-level training plan for your target event(s), view the plan as a blueprint, rather than a final document set in stone. You will write the final version over the coming months as you glean feedback from your training each week and adapt your training to your specific situation and goals.
The next and final step is to implement your plan by creating weekly schedules, which is discussed next.
Schedule Your Training Weeks
With your high-level training plan sketched out, you’re now ready to schedule your weekly workouts as you begin implementing the plan.
Remember, each training phase is focused on a particular training effect, which means each training phase draws from the particular sets of workouts associated with those training phases, as described earlier.
You can use the Alp Fitness workout library as a resource to schedule your weekly calendar, whether you do that on TrainingPeaks, in a spreadsheet, or on paper. Below are some additional tips to keep in mind as you arrange your workouts each week.
Approaches to Arranging Workouts
When it comes to implementing these workouts on a weekly basis, there are a few ways to approach this as you balance the overall training load.
The typical approach is to alternate hard days with easy days. This means scheduling one or more easy days after a hard day, which allows for more recovery between the key workouts so you can execute them more effectively.
Another approach, however, is to schedule the harder workouts on back-to-back days, which is generally followed by back-to-back recovery days. You obviously won’t be able to perform as well on the second day of key back-to-back workouts. But concentrating the training load over two days before recovering can help boost the training effect. If done consistently over a four-week training block; then you can also get in an extra key workout or two over that timeframe.
Back-to-back workouts can be a good strategy for ultrarunners looking to stack back-to-back long run days. But it can also be used for back-to-back tempo workouts and back-to-back threshold workouts. In some situations, it may even make sense to stack back-to-back VO2max workouts. Keep in mind that stacking back-to-back hard days needs to be followed by adequate recovery, which often means back-to-back easy days.
When it comes to rest days, the typical approach is to take one rest day each week. This can be a lightly active rest day with some yoga or mobility work, but it generally means a day off from your endurance (and strength training) activities.
Another approach, however, is to schedule a full rest day every few weeks or every month — rather than every week. This approach is typically adopted by more experienced and younger athletes. Instead of a complete day off, a recovery workout is scheduled.
As introduced earlier when discussing the general adaptation process, your fitness improves after adequate recovery from the work you’ve done — not simply after doing the work itself. So, scheduling adequate recovery throughout each training phase is crucial to reaping the rewards of the training.
Monitoring Recovery
Whether or not you schedule a designated recovery week every two to three weeks, you need to be able to recognize when your body is telling you it’s time for some recovery days.
One key indicator that you’re ready for more recovery or rest days is when your performance declines. A certain amount of performance decline is expected over a training phase. But if you experience a deterioration in performance of around 5% over your last two to three workouts; then that’s a sign you need to work in some rest and recovery.
You can also look specifically at a similar workout type to track your performance throughout a training phase. For example, if you’re moving through a lactate threshold training phase with threshold intervals each week, you should be able to more or less hit those intervals each week if you’re getting adequate recovery. Your training plan might schedule fewer intervals each week to account for the expected accumulation of fatigue. But if your performance declines around 5% over two of the last three threshold workouts, you know you need to work in more rest and recovery.
Another indicator is when you’re feeling progressively worse for three days in a row. Your heart rate may not be elevating during exercise — or you may have a higher than usual resting heart rate when waking up in the morning. You may feel sluggish, flat, or simply lacking the usual energy. This means you’re carrying more fatigue then you’re able to effectively shed and it’s time to rest. Take a day or two off followed by an easy day before jumping back into harder workouts.
Even if you feel you’re getting adequate recovery without taking a full rest day each week, be sure to schedule a rest day once a month — or, at least once every six weeks — during longer training phases. Extra recovery every 4-6 weeks allows your body to adapt to the training load you’ve thrown at it so it will be ready for another stage of improvement over the next 4-6 weeks of training.
As you schedule your training weeks, be sure to balance training loads and recovery along with other life activities and commitments. Stress is stress regardless of where that comes from in your life. If you’re experiencing a particularly challenging time at work with extra hours or stress, that all goes into the same bucket along with your training stress. So you may need to cut back on your workouts until the work commitments subside.
Consistent training is key, but maintaining consistency requires flexibility. It’s good to schedule your workouts at least a week in advance, but this doesn’t mean the week is set in stone. Revise the schedule as needed when events, weather, and other things come up. Use your training plan as a guide with an eye on the key workouts you’re trying to achieve each week. Work to get in those key workouts even if you need to move things around (or nix some of the other workouts) to make it happen.
The next section provides sample training weeks based on the previous training plan demo. Use these for ideas, but tailor your weeks based on your own plan and with your own goals and circumstances in mind.
Sample Training Week Schedules
Below is a sample aerobic base conditioning week, followed by sample training weeks based on the previous training plan demo.
Aerobic Base Conditioning: Sample Week
Aerobic base conditioning — the ABCs of endurance training — is the starting point for those with less than four years of training, as well as experienced endurance athletes who may be coming off an extended break from training. Aerobic base conditioning prepares your body for more rigorous training by building endurance and fostering neuromuscular speed. The key workouts are endurance workouts and endurance workouts with alactics, supplemented by recovery workouts and form drills. Here is a sample aerobic base conditioning week for a running plan.

The week includes three endurance runs (two with alactic striders) and three recovery runs (two with drills and the third as optional). The recovery days are scheduled after each endurance day to modulate the training stress and recovery. This is for someone running 6 days/week, but here’s how you could adjust the frequency and volume based on your personal starting point if you’re running less.
- To turn this into a 5 day/week plan, remove the recovery run on Fridays marked optional.
- To turn this into a 4 day/week plan, do one endurance run with alactics, the endurance long run, one recovery run with drills, and one recovery run.
- To turn this into a 3 day/week plan, do one endurance run with alactics, the endurance long run, and one recovery run with drills.
- To adjust training volume, add or subtract time from the runs.
Recovery runs can vary from 20 minutes to an hour. The purpose of recovery runs is to help you recover and stay loose for the key runs of the week. Reduce the time or nix the recovery run on days when you need additional recovery.
Endurance runs (other than the designated long run) can vary from 30 minutes to an hour or more depending on your current training volume. Here, the endurance long run is 70 minutes; but adjust that time up or down depending on your current needs. Choose a long run duration that approximates where you’re currently at; then add a reasonable amount of time to that each week to build up to the long run duration you’d like to achieve by the end of the training block.
VO2max Training: Sample Week
Here is a sample VO2max training week based on the previous training plan demo:

The training week consists of 3 ½ hours of training, including an optional 20-minute recovery run that could be replaced with a day off, recovery walk, or yoga if further recovery is needed.
Since VO2max training involves higher-intensity anaerobic work, the training week keeps the volume low, including the weekend long run, to allow for the higher intensity interval workouts.
There are two VO2max interval workouts during the week with two recovery days between. Assuming the subsequent VO2max week uses a similar daily schedule, there will be a recovery run, relatively short long run, and a rest day after this week’s second VO2max workout before the next VO2max workout. This spacing provides recovery time between those higher intensity sessions.
Advanced endurance athletes may opt for back-to-back days with VO2max intervals, followed by at least two recovery days. If trying this, schedule the harder of the two workouts on the first day.
Lactate Threshold Training: Sample Week
Here is a sample lactate threshold training week based on the previous training plan demo:

The training week consists of 4 ½ hours of training, including an optional 20-minute recovery run that could be replaced with a day off, recovery walk, or yoga if further recovery is needed.
There are two LT cruise interval workouts during the week with a recovery day between them. The third key workout is the weekend long run. There is a recovery day and a rest day before the subsequent week’s schedule begins, providing recovery between the training weeks.
Advanced endurance athletes may opt for back-to-back days with LT cruise intervals, followed by 1-2 recovery days. If trying this, schedule the harder of the two workouts on the first day.
Endurance Training: Sample Week
Here is a sample endurance training week based on the previous training plan demo:

The training week consists of just under 7 hours of training, including an optional 20-minute recovery run that could be replaced with a day off, recovery walk, or yoga if further recovery is needed.
The focus here is on training volume, rather than intensity. There are back-to-back long runs scheduled on the weekend with the first of those being the longer one. During that first one, I would also want to run on a route with a similar vertical change profile to the one for the race.
During the week, there are two workouts that integrate some sub-LT aerobic tempo work. If I am feeling too fatigued going into one of these tempo runs; then I could nix the tempo and turn it into either a regular endurance run or a shorter recovery run.
I noted in the training plan for this endurance training phase that I want to target long runs with vertical profiles similar to the race and work on dialing in my race nutrition.
To compare training routes with the vertical change found in a race route, use this formula:
(vertical gain + vertical loss) / total miles = elevation change per mile
For example, let’s say I’m targeting a 50K race with 8,200 vertical gain and the same vertical loss since it starts and ends in the same place. I plug those numbers into the formula:
(8,200 ft + 8,200 ft) / 31 miles = 529 ft vertical change per mile
This is the vertical change — including both up and down — per mile. I want to try to mimic this vertical change per mile on at least one of my long runs each week during this training phase.
During these long runs, I should also be practicing with the nutrition and hydration plan I want to use during the race. This will allow me to find out what works and what doesn’t work, so I can make adjustments and dial in my nutrition plan well before the race.
Peak & Taper: Sample Week
As noted earlier, tapering is highly specific to the individual. You will need to find what works for you based on your experience. But there are some general guidelines to follow during your tapering phase.
When planning your workouts, reduce your overall training volume with these steps:
- First decrease your training volume without changing the frequency of your workouts.
- Reduce training volume the most at the beginning of your taper and then gradually level off the decreases.
- Maintain the type and intensity of interval workouts — whether LT cruise intervals or VO2max intervals — but reduce the number of intervals.
- Maintain or reduce the frequency of the interval workouts.
During the training phase, you also should focus on getting adequate — and even extra — sleep. Be sure to eat well and stay hydrated.
Here is a sample taper week based on the previous training plan demo:

The training week reduces volume to just over 3 hours, while providing two rest days. It includes some LT cruise intervals to keep the runner sharp, but the number of intervals are reduced from what the runner would normally do. The endurance long run is also shortened.
Next Steps
Your training plan, including your weekly workout schedule, is but a guide to keep you heading toward your goals. While using this guide, pay attention to how your body responds to the training and make adjustments along the way.
As discussed earlier, gains from your training actually occur during the recovery periods between the harder training sessions. If you pay attention to your recovery and adjust your training when you’re not getting enough recovery, then you can avoid overtraining and stay on the right trajectory toward your goals. Here are a few more tips to keep in mind as you monitor your training and recovery.
With any higher intensity interval work — especially VO2max intervals or LT cruise intervals — your aim should be to leave the workout with something left in the tank. In other words, you do not want to leave it all on the track in any given workout. Apply a sufficient stimulus to trigger a response; then back off and allow your body to gain the adaptation. That will allow you to return a few days later to train some more, rather than needing to turn that second workout into a recovery day.
For example, let’s say you’re doing 6 x 3-minute VO2max intervals. You hit the first three consistently, but you really struggle on the fourth one, turning in a much slower time. The same thing happens on the fifth one as you slow down even more. Rather than fighting through a sixth one, call it a workout and warm down. You achieved the main objective of the workout and are past the point of diminishing returns. It’s time to begin your recovery.
Pay attention to your sleep and eating patterns. Your body rebuilds during rest and sleep, and your body needs nutrients to grow stronger as it adapts to the training stress.
Endurance athletes — both men and women — can be at risk for a condition that scientists have termed relative energy deficiency in sport (RED-S). RED-S results from not eating enough calories during training and can result in low energy levels and endocrine dysfunction. Read more about the warning signs of RED-S and be sure to avoid them with a healthy diet that complements the increased caloric needs of the endurance training you’re doing.
If you’d like to start with a pre-built plan and then customize it for your needs, check out the Alp Fitness training plans on TrainingPeaks. If you’d like to use the Alp Fitness workout library to create your own training plan on TrainingPeaks, check out the “Running – Workout Library.”
Whatever your goals, good luck with your pursuits and train smart!